President Muhammadu Buhari has cancelled his much-publicised trip to Rivers state for the official flag-off of the Ogoni clean-up.
The news of the President’s planned trip hit the airwaves since last week with many seeing the trip as an opportunity for him to close the seeming gap between himself and the Niger Delta people.
The clean-up of the polluted Ogoni land had been recommended by the United Nations Environmental Programme in 2011.
While the President’s advance teams have been on ground in Rivers, several sources in the State House on Thursday morning informed Thinkers Newspaper that he was still in the Presidential Villa at the time of filing this story and will no longer be traveling to Rivers.
Others sources said the President may be represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who as at Wednesday night was expected to return from an official trip in Papua New Guinea.
The President had similarly cancelled a trip to Lagos recently and sent Osinbajo to represent him.
While no reason was given for the cancellation of the Lagos trip, the President confessed to a group of editors he met last week that he had ear infection and had to cancel the trip.
Efforts to reach his spokesmen on the latest cancellation did not yield results.
Details later.
